Mahayana Temple Buddhist Association

It was nice and beautiful temple physically, but the people who work there was not welcoming and extremely impolite. The staffs who work on the first floor do not speak English at all, and neglect when they clearly look that I was confused by the way of worship. They don’t try to speak even simple and easy English, and never tried to help me.
Also, one of the staffs pulled out the lightning of the stated of Buddha WHILE I WAS PRAYING FOR HIM, nevertheless the open hour still 15mins remained. I am a Buddhist from Asia, but I’ve never seen people who treat a prayer like such a rude way.
I felt they kicked me out before it was closing. VERY DISAPPOINTED.
Also, the old Chinese lady spoken to me buying an oil at front desk. I simply asked her back ‘what is it for?’ because I had no idea how the oils is used for. The the old lady might have misunderstood as I was not interested in buying it, then told me ‘GO HOME’.
I think all of those staffs behaviors are not appropriate as spiritual place.
Also, I agree with this temple is too commercial, as other people wrote in the reviews.

Despite the fact that this is a very commercial temple, there’s a lot to see & learn here. As you enter, you pass the gift store counter on your left, but you also pass a sculpture & several paintings of Guanyin bodhisattva on the right. The donation box is next, front & center with the huge incense urn. Then comes the actual compassionate Guanyin shrine. For many tourists, this is as far as they go. But for the more curious & courageous, keep walking down the corridor to the left, down the ramp, & into the former movie theater’s main hall. Here is one of only two temples in Chinatown (the other is at 99 Madison St. on the east side of Chinatown) where you can see the life story of Sakyamuni Buddha illustrated here in 32 beautiful traditional Thai-​style framed pictures with Chinese & English explanations. For this reason alone, I give it 4 stars.
At the front is a large seated Buddha, representing Amituofo (Amitabha Buddha). Near the back of the hall on the left is a small shrine to the Healing Buddha, Yaoshifo (Bhaisajyaguru), with the red slips with names of donors. In both rear corners of the main hall are shrines to the Rescuer of the Dead, Dizangwang bodhisattva (Ksitigarbha), with yellow strips with names of those who have passed.
This temple is called Dachengsi (Mahayana Temple) & is owned by the same person as the other, storefront gift-​shop also named Dachengsi at 64 Mott St.

I had always wanted to visit a Buddhist temple. My brother and I came to Mahayana on Sunday morning and felt completely welcomed and learned a lot. We didn’t stay for the entire 10AM service, but felt comfortable our entire time there. A beautiful way to experience another culture.

The temple was nice, quiet and tranquil. As you walk in your greeted by the God of mercy and the temple is filled with fruit as an offering to the gods. If you want a nice relaxing time and your trying to explore other cultures and religions come on down to this place. You’ll find it to be the center of China town where many Buddhist come to pray and celebrate the culture. Although Chinese New Year is over it’s the year of the goat.

This is such a beautiful Buddhist temple. When I come here I always leave feeling relaxed and centered. This temple is pretty big compared to many others I’ve seen in NYC and definitely worth a visit.
This temple gets a lot of tourist traffic. It’s great that so many people take an interest to this magnificent temple. However, there are obvious cons to such a catering to tourists. One, is that many of the customs are ignored. For instance, this is the first temple I’ve ever been to where you are not expected to take off your shoes. In addition, I constantly see people snapping pictures and talking loud.
My advice to anyone visiting, please be respectful. It’s not your living room.

Amazing Buddhist temple. I feel the most relaxed at this place. That is from a person who is a secular humanist and do not subscribe to any religion. JUST AMAZING!

Sur les recommandations de Lonely Planet. Ce temple bouddhiste se trouve à l’entrée est de chinatown. L’entrée né paie pas de mine avec un autel de prière où vous pouvez donner vos offrandes. Le bijou caché ici est l’immense statue de Bouddha d’environ 10 mètres de haut.
Un endroit très apaisant contrastant avec la frénésie du Chinatown newyorkais.
Bémol: le magasin de souvenirs est vraiment surfait…

Beautiful temple right in Chinatown. From the outside it doesn’t seem like much, but once inside, it feels quite peaceful and the Buddhas are beautiful. I came here for Sunday service to check it out with a friend and I was not disappointed. Everyone seemed quite welcoming which was a really nice since it was my first experience with Buddhism. I would definitely come back for services again and to learn more about the Buddhist culture.

I’ve always wanted to visit a Buddhist temple, but was always a little hesitant. I tagged along when a friend wanted to attend their Sunday morning prayer service and it was better than expected. It was a bit confusing, I was completely lost at first with all of the chanting, but someone walked over and pointed us where we were in the program; and once you get it, it’s simple (unless you lose your place again). We then got up and walked around in a circle and chanted (I apologize that I don’t know any of the real terminologies). After about 45 minutes there was a break in the service. My friend and I decided to not attend the second part of the service; and head to the gift/​museum shop and look around. They have a lot of great stuff and it’s actually not too pricey. The one negative about the gift shop is that it seems like it caters to tourists as well; so yes, although you still get the full legitimate feel of a Buddhist temple, it was a little weird seeing a poster promoting prayer beads with a picture of Ashlee Simpson — that part just threw me off a bit, but not enough to ruin my experience.
Overall, a very pleasant experience, and do see myself coming here more often.

I’m not Buddhist so I can’t really judge anything about this place. The temple is more like a tourist attraction than a temple itself. They have a gift shop/​museum on the second floor selling all sorts of jewelry, crafts, and buddhist-​related paraphernalia. There is a small shrine with a buddha near the entrance to the temple and a large worship/​ceremony room with an even bigger Buddha. When I visited there today, they were holding service, so I couldn’t go in. However, it was interesting and I donated $ 1 to pick out a Fortune from a basket filled with paper-​rolled «Fortunes». Thankfully, the fortune told me that my success rate is «GOOD» =)

A beautiful and tranquil spot in the middle of NYC. I was very impressed by this place — it was nice to be left to look around a temple like this. The atmosphere was very relaxed, there were a couple of people sitting around, enjoying the peace and quiet. Perfect.
This temple had a real impact on me and was actually a highlight of our trip. I ended up buying a book about the Buddhist faith in order to learn more. I will certainly be back on my next visit to Manhattan.

What a beautiful temple, and the store’s inventory upstairs will help anyone looking to learn more about Buddhism feel closer to enlightenment.

This a place where a Jewish guy (me) who wants peace and quiet can go to sit (meditate) and take a break away from the rat (literally in this city) race.
I have brought some of my middle school social studies classes here to introduce them to Buddhism and so my rating is not for the temple’s authenticity but for its quiet and peacefulness because when I am there with them, they are required to whisper!

The location of this temple is awesome; and they have a beautiful façade near the gates to the Manhattan bridge which makes for a fantastic photo-​op. If I was rating based on tourist kitzi-​ness, I would give this a 4 star rating.
This rating though is dedicated to the purpose of the temple. I think the interior is beautiful. It is clear they get great donations and benefit from the tourist traffic. However, one looses a lot of the tradition that makes a visit to the buddhist temples so wonderful. Your shoes are on — which is a tough one for a lot of Buddhists. Donation boxes are in religious places that are generally tourist attractions all over the city and in foreign countries. However, I feel that there is a bit more purpose for a lot of these types of donations, like lighting a candle or tot he specific god you’re praying to. In this temple, I feel more like they are just asking for money. Final thing I hate is that there are too many tourists that don’t understand Buddhist cultures. Seriously… do you need to take pictures? You’re really not suppose to do that in a Buddhist temple.
I like that it’s one of the few temples is actually large enough to handle the Chinese New Years traffic. If you need a quick fix visit to get your Chinese New Years on, by all means, choose this one.
I would say the downstairs maze is pretty impressive. I didn’t realize you could fit that much in the basement.

*Sunday Service is 10−12pm. It goes faster than you might think. Don’t be intimidated if you don’t know what you’re doing. I grew up Buddhist but I’m still confused when it comes to Buddhist customs from other regions by which I mean Chinese customs versus Vietnamese customs.
*Majority of people attending the service have been with the temple for some time now. They are extremely helpful and will guide you if you look lost.
*A few major differences I observed from most other temples I’ve attended:
You don’t take your shoes off.
Service starts with you sitting at a long table reading chants instead of sitting on the floor.
There’s on one incense urn at the entrance. You can bring in your incense and pray to the buddha but bring it back out to the incense urn.
*As with most Buddhist temples, everyone is very welcoming.
*Observe the signs. There is a time for pictures and there’s a time to put the camera away.
*There is a gift shop upstairs.

Where can you get enlightment for a buck? The Buddhist temple is a very spiritual temple where you can go to pray, relax or just enjoy the sights. If you drop a dollar into one of the boxes scattered around you will get a tiny rolled up parchment with little wisdom quotes from Buddha. Who says religion aint cheap?